The site of the former Acme on Route 571 has stood vacant for nearly a year now, but West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh is expecting movement on the property in the next few weeks.
Hsueh said he has been making the Acme and Rite Aid sites his priority and has been following up with property owners on a regular basis. “I have a feeling that hopefully, there will be some good news on the Acme property,” he said.
“The potential buyer already started looking into an environmental consultant to deal with the state DEP clearance,” Hsueh added.
The family that owns the Acme site had been undergoing a transition of ownership, from the grandfather to his six grandchildren. As is routine with any property transfer, the state has required the family to have environmental clearance before moving forward. They had been undergoing the environmental inventory as part of state Department of Environmental Protection policy.
Those environmental issues still need to be resolved, said Hsueh. “Some of the problems need to be reviewed and remediated by professionals before they get clearance from the DEP,” he said.
He declined to state who the potential buyer is, citing that negotiations are still ongoing. Hsueh said that over the course of a year, his discussions with various potential buyers have changed just as frequently as their interest in the property has. “Hopefully this time it will be the real thing,” Hsueh said. “From the township’s perspective, we have been meeting with them, and it sounds like they have a decent proposal coming up.”
When asked what he thought the potential use of the site would be, Hsueh said he has been emphasizing his view that it is important for residents to be able to have a food business located on site, where they can pick up something quickly on the way to or from work.
“I expect they are going to be focusing on the food side of it,” Hsueh said, speculating that the move might create “different stores.”
Shortly after the Acme closed last May, the Dreher Group, a Princeton-based commercial developer that also owns the Rite-Aid Pharmacy site across the road from the Acme, had reportedly been under contract to buy the entire shopping center — formally known as Windsor Plaza — from the Courtney family, the original owners of the center. Rumors circulated that Dreher was looking to bring a high-end Kings market to the center, but the entire deal ultimately fell through with Dreher, who never purchased the site.
The family hired a new management company, Silbert Real Estate and Management Inc. of Millington to handle leasing of the Windsor Plaza shopping center.
Complicating the process all year has been the fact that the McDowell family, which currently owns the Acme center, are the grandchildren of the long-time owner, and because they live in different locations throughout the nation, including Missouri and California, contact has been difficult.
In addition, the current owners deliberated back and forth about whether they wanted to sell or rent the property, Hsueh said.
News about the most recent prospective buyer for the property is “better than what we have experienced in the past year,” Hsueh said. “Since May of last year, we have been talking to some people. However, we had no clear, concrete ideas until this time.”
In related a matter, Hsueh said he has been reaching out to the owners of the Rite Aid property down the street. He said he has been contacting them on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis.
The council called for cleanup work at the property, and Hsueh announced in February that Dreher had agreed to knock down the two vacant buildings on the corner of Cranbury and Princeton-Hightstown roads.
The Dreher Group had already received approval to construct the Rite Aid on site. The site plan calls for a 14,673 square foot Rite Aid, and an additional 6,000 feet of retail space that could include a coffee shop and a restaurant.
